Conventional Wisdom Changes
Call to Editors Please help to flesh out this section on how conventional wisdom shifted to the "low fat, high carb" ideal it is today. Ancel Keys Ancel Keys was a American scientist who studied the epidemiology of cardiovascular disease and was the formulator of both the K-rations provided to American soldiers during World War II and the Mediterranean diet . Keys' interest in diet and cardiovascular disease (CVD) was based on an observational quandary: well-fed American business executives had high rates of heart disease, while in post-war Europe suffering from food shortages, cardiovascular disease rates had decreased sharply. He postulated a correlation between cholesterol levels and CVD. The pivotal Seven Countries study made a link between high serum cholesterol, high blood pressure, and smoking to CVD. Controversy arises if one considers the possibility that Keys rejected plot points that wouldn't fit his hypothesis during regression analysis of the data. Denise Minger, who has achieved some notoriety as the debunker of "The China Study," has reviewed this accusation and addresses it in her blog post "The Truth About Ancel Keys..." It's a long article, but the possibility exists the error was genuine and not deliberate chicanery on Keys' part. Gary Taubes in ''Good Calories, Bad Calories ''(2007) also makes the claim that the scientific method was set aside to allow the data to fit the hypothesis (citation required). Regardless of his purity (or not) of motive, Keys' pushed the "The Lipid Hypothesis " long and hard until it gained adherents. Prior to Keys' anti-fat message, carbohydrates were well understood to be uniquely fattening. Keys' work along with the "Dietary Goals " for the American people, moved the public attitude away from this viewpoint and toward blaming of fat for weight gain. Perhaps the old saw "you are what you eat," played into the acceptance of this new guidance from the government. Regardless, Americans implemented the Dietary Goals widely and began replacing fats with carbohydrates, and replacing animal fat with vegetable fat. The results can be reviewed in this work by Stephen Guyenet on his "Whole Health Source " blog. McGovern Report The Dietary Goals were produced by The United States Senate Select Committee on Nutrition and Human Needs, a select committee of the United States Senate between 1968 and 1977. It was sometimes referred to as the McGovern committee, after its only chairperson, Senator George McGovern of South Dakota. What began as a committee to address hunger issues in the United States shaped into something quite different. In 1974, McGovern expanded the committee's scope to include national nutrition policy. In 1977, the committee issued a new set of nutritional guidelines for Americans as a means of combatting killer conditions such as heart disease, certain cancers, stroke, high blood pressure, obesity, diabetes, and arteriosclerosis. Most of the work was done by McGovern's staffers, but McGovern himself was strongly influenced by diet guru Nathan Pritikin. The story is written up at length and somewhat critically, here . Americans were to eat less fat, less cholesterol, less refined and processed sugars, and more complex carbohydrates and fiber -- complex carbohydrate, denoting fruit, vegetables and whole-grains. Corporate Interest The current low-fat, high carb diet is heavily backed by corporate interests. For example, the Academy of Nutrition and Diatetics, formerly known as the American Dietetic Association, is largely sponsored by companies that produce junk food. Some examples are: *ConAgra Foods *Kelloggs *Coca-Cola *Mars *Pepsi Co. The organization that is supposed to be the authority of nutrition and health is actually promoting the consumption of products from its corporate sponsors. A full report is available here .